


The Widower

by CornishIvy



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Death, Grief/Mourning, imelda dies before hector leaves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 15:28:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14381556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CornishIvy/pseuds/CornishIvy
Summary: Héctor Rivera became a widower during an otherwise beautiful summer.





	The Widower

**Author's Note:**

> Not my usual style, but I like how it turned out. Still working on The Way Home, I just had an idea that wanted out.

Héctor Rivera became a widower during an otherwise beautiful summer. Fruits grew so thick and heavy that their trees bowed. The breeze sang with the smell of the flowers. There was bread and sugar and the sunlight was sweet in the mornings. In June, everything in Santa Cecilia was perfect. In July, a shadow swept in, riding a malicious wind. Before August could begin, Imelda was dead.

The lovely summer shriveled and cloyed. But, Ernesto reasoned, there was plenty of food for the velorio, eh, amigo?

Héctor broke four matches before he could properly light the candle. 

Little Coco, Héctor and Imelda’s daughter, wanted her mamá. Take off the sheet, Papá. Wake her up, Papá.  
Héctor clutched her close, even when she squirmed to get down. The shadow might still be in the house, in the air, in the light. And he was afraid. 

Imelda’s brothers had forgotten that morning that she had gone. Oscar asked his brother-in-law where she was. Felipe, seared with the sudden memory, hit him. 

Héctor did not speak.

And he did not sing.

~

The sun dripped out of the sky like a melting thing. Like a rotting thing. In pieces. Imelda was beneath the church with her jewelry, in her favorite dancing dress and a sturdy pair of shoes. Coco was beneath her blanket with a doll whose smile had been carved with red thread by hands that would never touch it again. Héctor, now a wraith, now quiet, was beneath the stars. The sultry night was pressing, squeezing, suffocating. The stars were not stars, but shattered glass. Remnants of something precious and delicate and beautiful and utterly destroyed. 

Nothing was beneath Ernesto. In one moment, he cajoled. In the next, he threatened. In another, he begged. 

Héctor would not go. He would not be taken away, not by the shadow, and not by the glittery yellow promises of somewhere far away and so much better than Santa Cecilia. I can’t take Coco from her home. I can’t leave her here with the twins. I can’t talk about this, Ernesto. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

Ernesto, like many before him, was frightened by the unmanly tears. He dug in his own heart until he found some linty scraps of compassion.

All right, amigo. 

Instead of Héctor’s accompanying him on the tour, Ernesto would graciously accept only the songs Héctor had written. After all, Héctor would need to provide for Coco, wouldn’t he? No playing for coins in the plaza with a child to raise all alone. 

Ernesto left, singing.

Héctor was left in silence.

~

Women wafted and fluttered. They spun like honey. They sparkled like water. They watched like coyotes. And then they turned away.

The money that Ernesto sent was never quite enough.

Héctor washed the clothes, the linens, the dishes, the floors, the windows. He tended the garden, beat the rugs, he mended and patched and repaired. He eyed stalls selling candied fruits and bright painted toys and sighed and did not look again. He never looked, not even once, at the players in the plaza. He baked and boiled and seasoned and roasted.

I’m hungry, Papá.

And sometimes he didn’t.

Take mine, I’m not hungry.

Salvation came in a slow whispering of inspiration. A trickle, then a stream, and once he was full of the idea, it came pouring out.

He should make shoes.

The twins helped. Ernesto sent a scathing letter, but a little more money than last time. Coco wanted him to make candy or fireworks instead.

Rivera Zapetería opened within a year.

In the plaza, words were like birds. Every size, shape, color, and temperament. They sang, picked, pecked, stole, and gave. Sometimes they died. Sometimes they were born. Widower thrashed stubbornly but was soon dust on the road. Instead, Shoemaker perched were Widower once had. But it did not sing. 

~

It was the day for children and Héctor was lighting candles again. Only one match, this time.

It was the day for adults. Here, cuñado, I will do it.

It was the day.

Imelda would get new shoes, a new scarf, some old things that had not been buried with her. She would see her daughter, so much older than when she had left her. She would see her brothers, only a little older. And her husband, older still.

She would get more food than she could reasonably carry.

She would not get a song.

~

Héctor lives in a narrow tunnel. The only thing to see is the way ahead. It is too narrow to turn around. The walls are made of his neighbors, of bills, of orders, of shadows, of Ernesto. 

The sun is white. The sun is smiling. The sun, then, must be a skull.

Héctor has become a successful shoemaker. Coco has married Julio. Ernesto has died.

The news drove in a sleek black car until the roads turned bad. The news had to take a train. Then a cart. By then the news was irritated and not at all compassionate. The news hits Héctor in the chest, hard, until he staggers.

Mi amigo, mi amigo.

Broken like a puppet with the strings cut. Shattered and scattered while gaping faces watched. Ernesto truly is a star. Imelda will not be pleased to see him.

But grief is a vintage Héctor has tasted before. 

There are shoes to be made and Coco wants to dance.

She isn’t asking Héctor to sing.

~

A day will come, though not soon, when it will rain. Water pouring out of the can in the garden.

The vegetables will smile at it. The trees will frown, but not mean it. Héctor will contemplate its rhythm. 

His granddaughters will clap, chanting their rhymes. Coco will dance for them and laugh. Julio will be tapping at the workbench, and he will watch his children with warmth. 

The sky will be dark. The sky will be full of water. The sky will be wide open. 

Héctor will breathe.

Héctor will smile.

Héctor will sing.


End file.
